- Flex has seen its valuation more than double to $1.2 billion in just seven months.
- The $70 million Series B1 round, led by Ryan Smith and Ryan Sweeney’s Halo Fund, was raised just seven months after Flex’s last funding round.
- Flex says its revenue has tripled since December, as it launches Flex Global, a stablecoin-powered banking service now available in more than 100 countries.
Flex, an AI-driven private bank for high-net-worth business owners, has raised $70 million in a Series B1 round led by Ryan Smith and Ryan Sweeney’s Halo Fund. Other investors include Portage, Wellington, Crosslink Capital, 53 Stations, Titanium Ventures, Spice, Florida Funders, and more.
This funding round has doubled Flex’s valuation to $1.2 billion, up from its December 2025 raise. The company says its annualised revenue has tripled in that time and now exceeds nine figures.
Raising funds every seven months
Flex points out its rapid fundraising pace, with this being its second round in seven months. Tech Funding News reported on the $60 million Series B in December, when Flex had tripled its payment volume to $3 billion in a year. The company says its revenue has tripled again since then.
Flex has now raised $180 million in equity and $300 million in debt, up from $105 million after December’s round. Although investors have supported this rapid growth in 2026, it could be risky if any key metric falls short. Flex plans to use the new funds to double its staff from 110 to over 200 by the end of the year and to expand into business finance, personal finance, payments, private credit, and ERP.
Flex, formerly known as Flexbase, was founded in San Francisco in 2023 by Zaid Rahman, a Thiel Fellow and Columbia dropout who is now on his third startup after creating the AI learning tools company Volley. The company shifted from offering a business-card product to private banking for business owners, positioning itself between consumer and enterprise finance.
Flex says there are about 350,000 high-net-worth business owners in the US, making up 40% of private-sector payroll. Worldwide, the potential customer base is estimated at 3 million. Flex focuses on customers who operate across different entities, currencies, and countries.
“Middle-market business owners are among the most important and underserved customers in global finance. Depending on the owner, their vendors may be spread across the US, Poland, Brazil, and other countries; their accounts hold currencies beyond USD; and they must navigate multiple vendors and layers of fees to conduct international business,” says Rahman, Flex’s CEO and founder.
Stablecoins and investment from an NBA owner
The new funding will help Flex Global expand its infrastructure to more than 100 countries. This includes stablecoin payment systems and wallets; institutional USD accounts for foreign business owners; multi-currency accounts in 76 countries, supporting 32 currencies; private credit in over 20 countries; and business cards for multiple entities and locations on one platform.
Flex reports surpassing $10 billion in annualised total payment volume, representing about 4x year-over-year growth. The average customer uses four or more Flex products. The company’s largest business categories by client count are construction, wholesale, and multinational businesses.
Flex attributes its timing to recent regulatory changes, including new stablecoin laws in the US and Europe over the past year and a half. Major payment networks have moved from testing to full-scale use, and Visa’s stablecoin settlements have reached a multibillion-dollar annual run rate.
Flex says that real-economy stablecoin payment volume nearly doubled in 2025, mostly in business-to-business transactions. The company points out that its settlement process is invisible to customers. Business owners can pay suppliers abroad as easily as they do at home, with funds moving within minutes rather than days, all through a familiar banking interface. Flex’s Beacon AI finance agent helps owners manage their balance sheets.
The lead investor in this round is unusual for fintech. Halo Fund was co-founded by Ryan Smith, who started Qualtrics and owns the NBA’s Utah Jazz and the NHL’s Utah Mammoth, along with Accel general partner Ryan Sweeney.
“I’ve spent my career helping entrepreneurs win, and they all have the same problem: their business and personal financial lives are completely intertwined, but every bank treats them as two different customers, missing what they’re actually trying to build. Flex is the first team creating a real private bank around the owner and the entire household’s finances, and the gap they’re filling is just as real globally as it is in the US,” says Smith.
There is currently a lot of scepticism in the sector
Flex is raising new capital in a sector that has recently shown how quickly startup banking valuations can drop. For example, Capital One bought Brex for $5.15 billion in April, which is less than half of Brex’s peak valuation in 2022. Mercury raised $200 million at a $5.2 billion valuation the next month and is now seeking a national bank charter.
A Research and Markets report says private banking was valued at $505.61 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $721.23 billion by 2030. Stablecoin-focused private banks like France’s RockFi are also targeting this market, but with more conservative and transparent growth numbers.
